Originals and Analogues (article)

Originals and Analogues of the Exeter Book Riddles
By Frederick Tupper Jr., for Modern Language Notes (1903)

Just a quick note:
This article discusses the Exeter Book Riddles, including all sorts of weird and wonderful information. One of the answers proposed for a certain riddle is our very own... “Barnacle Goose”!

This riddle “opens the gates to a world of strange beliefs and superstitious fancies” (100). Just how I like my riddles. Tupper notes the earliest literary account of the barnacle goose – Giraldus Cambrensis, in his twelfth century work Topographia Hiberniae.

This indicates, if nothing else, the small niche occupied by zoophytic hybrids in the English imagination, starting before the twelfth century and expanding into the early modern era. Why? Couldn’t tell you. But here’s yet another piece of evidence that this odd fascination exists.